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The “snowflake” generation of students’ hostility to free speech on campus has been revealed in a new survey which shows that the majority want controversial speakers to be “no-platformed”.

Students were presented with a list of hypothetical speakers holding a spectrum of contentious views, ranging from someone believes climate change is not caused by humans, to someone want to ban religion.

Assuming the speaker had already been invited to give a talk at their university, students were asked whether or not a talk should be allowed to go ahead.

More than two-thirds of students (68 per cent) said that talks by Holocaust deniers should not be allowed to take place, according the a YouGov poll of 1,004 British students.

Meanwhile 64 per cent said they would ban speakers who believe that terrorist attacks in the UK can be justified.

One in ten students said that speakers who want to Royal Family to be abolished should be no-platformed.

In 2015, students attempted to stop Germaine Greer, a leading feminist, from giving a lecture at Cardiff UniversityCredit:
Jim Petersen

And a fifth said speakers should be banned if they believe that God literally created the universe in six days.

According to the poll, only 36 per cent of students said that speakers should be allowed to address students if they believe that transgender woman are not “real” women. Just under half (48 per cent) said the speaker should not be allowed, with the remaining 15 per cent answering “don’t know” or “prefer not to say”.

Terf, which stands for Trans-Exclusionary Radical Feminists, is generally used as a derogatory term to describe those who believe that “identifying” as a woman is not the same as being born a woman.

It can also be used to refer to people who are deemed to hold “transphobic” views. In 2015, students attempted to stop Germaine Greer, a leading feminist, from giving a lecture at Cardiff University on the basis that she had expressed transphobic views in the past.

Veteran lesbian activist Linda Bellos Credit:
Simon Grosset

Last October, the veteran lesbian activist Linda Bellos has been due to speak at Cambridge University, but a college feminist society revoked their invitation after she said she would be questioning trans politics.

The "snowflake generation" is a disparaging term now commonly used to refer to young people, who are perceived to be over-sensitive and intolerant of disagreement.

YouGov carried out another survey where they asked British members of the general public to imagine they were at university and the same set of speakers had been invited.

Students were more likely to ban three speakers than adults: the speaker who claims that vaccinations cause autism, one believes that transgender women are not 'real' women, and one believes that climate change is not caused by human actions.

The only speaker that the general public are more likely to want banned than students is the one who believes that the royal family should be abolished.